Israeli Scholar Shows Moslems`, Jews` Similarities

June 14, 1985|By James D. Davis, Religion Writer

It`s a safe bet that Ramadan, the Moslem holy month that ends Wednesday, will have gone unnoticed by most Jews.

That`s a symptom of the lack of understanding about Jews` and Moslems` common roots, suggests an area Israeli scholar. Just as Islam is based partly on Judaism, says Yehuda Shamir, so Judaism has its links to Islam.

``You can`t understand Jewish philosophy and history without studying Arabs and Islam,`` says Shamir, who teaches classes on the two faiths at Barry and Florida International universities in Miami. ``And if you`re a good Moslem, or even a good Christian, you have to study Judaism. It`s the mine from which both were hewed.

``Even if you read just the Koran, you get the teaching that there is one God. It may be an abstract idea, but it leads to the understanding that everything and everyone came from the one Creator. Therefore, all men are brothers, and all are responsible for one another.``

Born in Tel Aviv, educated at Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Dropsie University in Philadelphia, Shamir is hardly about to surrender his Jewish allegiance. But early on, he found that much Jewish literature is written in Arabic, the legacy of Jewish schools in the medieval Mideast. The discovery led him to minor in Islamic studies.

A look at Ramadan shows up the peculiar likenesses and differences of Islam and Judaism -- and Christianity as well, Shamir says. He notes that followers of all three faiths have a season of prayer and fasting, but they do it for varying reasons.

For Jews it is the Counting of the Omer, the seven weeks in the spring between Passover and Shavuot. The period mourns the Roman slaughter of Jewish scholars in the first century.

Christians have Lent, the 40 days from Ash Wednesday through Good Friday, a time of advance mourning for the traditional anniversary of Jesus` death.

But Ramadan apparently has no such founding event, Shamir says. ``It is a direct commandment of God, probably just to discipline everyone to do his will. The fasting also may help in compassion, making people feel closer to those who have no food.``

But he sees mutual influence in the hundreds of Arabic and Persian words similar to those in Hebrew. Paradise, first mentioned in the Song of Solomon, is a Persian term. Satan`s name resembles Shaitan, the Islamic evil spirit. Job probably lived either in Jordan or the Arabian peninsula, Shamir says.

Each sura or division of the Koran begins with a blessing: ``By the name of Allah, the Compassionate and Merciful.`` In the Arabic word for ``compassionate,`` arrahman, Shamir finds the equivalent Hebrew word harahaman. The Arabic word for ``merciful`` is arrahim, strikingly like the Hebrew word for ``merciful,`` harahum.

Shamir offers other similarities:

Ramadan requires each Moslem to make atonement for wrongs he has done. In Arabic, ``atonement`` is kaffara; in Hebrew it is kappara. For Jews, Yom Kippur -- the Day of Atonement -- is the climax of the High Holy Days.

The Koran`s opening sura has the phrase ``Maliki Youm-Iddin,`` calling God the ``King of the Day of Judgment.`` Previous Hebrew literature had the expression ``Melekh Yom-Haddin,`` meaning the same thing.

The prescribed fasting during Ramadan, one of the Five Pillars or prime commandments of Islam, is called saum. It is similar to the Hebrew term tzom, also meaning a fast.

The Islamic evening prayer is called maghrib; the Hebrew evening prayer is called maariv. The Moslem prayer leader is the muezzin; the Jewish prayer leader is the hazzan, translated ``cantor`` in English.

Where would all these cross-links have formed? A likely place would have been Medina, the holy Arabian city to which Mohammed fled from Mecca in 622. There were three Jewish clans -- as well as a monastery -- in Medina at the time, Shamir says.

He finds it interesting that within a year after coming to Medina, Mohammed called a fast on the 10th day of the year, similar to the 10 Jewish High Holy Days. But a year later he decreed a whole month of fasting, which became Ramadan.

Conscious of being the latest arrivals among the three monotheistic faiths, Moslems do acknowledge Jews and Christians as the ``people of the Book,`` Shamir says. ``They see Jesus, Moses and Abraham as messengers of God. They even believe Jesus is Al-Massih, the Messiah, who will sit in judgment at the end of the world.``

But Moslems say the Hebrew and Christian Bibles are in ``corrupted form, and only the Koran is in its original purity. Moslems even say the book is a copy of the true Koran in heaven.``

But the Koran has strong differences with the Bible, Shamir says. ``In the Bible there is dialogue between man and God. Jeremiah asks `Why me?` when God chooses him as a prophet. But the Koran is mainly a monologue of God speaking to man. Even when people speak in a story, it is God quoting the people. It is all the word of God.``

Still, the professor says both Jews and Moslems can appreciate the common values that shape their approaches to the world.

``Unlike Christianity, both Islam and Judaism define religion as not just a set of dogma but as a way of life. They both have a system of laws that govern life from waking to sleeping, from birth to death.